


I Dreamt Of The Darkness Around My Heart

by ShadowKnight



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Death, Gen, Self-Harm, Suicide, Symbolism, Violence, dream imagery, scisaac if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 16:03:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowKnight/pseuds/ShadowKnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The darkness that dwells in Scott's dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Dreamt Of The Darkness Around My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Dark!fic about something Scott dreamt after S03E12. Explores his character and delves into depression and other dark themes.

Scott is not alone. He can feel them in the dark. They are laughing and whispering. The woods isn’t a place to laugh, but he can’t bring himself to tell them to stop. They earnt their break. He feels safe around them, even if he can’t see them. He can feel them around him, walking along in the darkness. The leaves and twigs crunch under his shoes. He can’t see where he’s going, but he can feel the trees around him.

Scott stops, he forgot something important. He left something behind. He turns around and sees Ethan, Aiden and Danny. Danny is trying to take off the blindfold around his eyes, but Ethan and Aiden are trying to convince him to leave it where it is. The fabric of the blindfold is ragged, white and bloodstained. Scott doesn’t know what to do. He feels cripplingly guilty at the idea of pulling the blindfold off, but leaving it on feels even wronger. He hasn’t made up his mind yet when Danny trips.

Danny falls in slow motion, with Ethan and Aiden both reaching to grab him before he falls, but Scott knows they’ll be too late. Hands rise from the forest soil, and Scott hears Jennifer’s cackling in the wind. The hands catch Danny and drag him into the ground in a swirl of dead leaves.

Ethan yells in anger, eyes flashing red. He looks about to start viciously clawing at the earth itself, when the howling starts. Scott looks up, but he doesn’t see the stars or the moon, not even clouds. He sees blackness, thick and impenetrable. He looks at the twins again, and sees solid darkness taking form around them. The darkness has the shape of a man, but the head and claws of a wolf. The shapes slash at Ethan and Aiden, and Scott runs towards them. He can help them. The darkness cannot take them if Scott is with them.

But he never makes it. He runs so slowly, no matter how much he strains himself to run faster, it seems he can’t close the distance between him and his allies. The shapes combine, grow taller and thicker. A huge manwolf made of solid blackness, towering above the twins. It crashes down upon them like a wave, engulfing them whole. When Scott reaches them, the darkness receding from his presence, Aiden and Ethan are gone.

“Scott!” a voice calls him from behind. “Scott, you need to come with me!”

It’s him. _Hate hurt pain we loved you we’re better off without you_. Scott glares at his father from across the vet clinic. He has no right. He needs to _leave_. Scott’s eyes squint in the penumbra. The lights aren’t working. He grips a metal table and fights the urge to shout.

“Scott, what are you waiting for?!” he says, outraged. “I need to take you in for questioning! This isn’t a game, son!”

How fucking _dare_ he. Scott growls, and he can feel his eyes threatening to burn red.

“Scott, get over here!” he calls from across the hallway with the flickering lights. He is surrounded by light, cold and clinical, fluorescent. He’s on the other side of the mountain ash counter. Scott is deep into the clinic, deep into the darkness.

Scott is about to shout at his father to get the fuck out, when Deaton walks into his sight. He’s calm, as always, and he starts to walk towards his father.

“It’s okay, Scott, I got this,” Deaton says with a serene steadiness that Scott envies.

Deaton grows blurry as he walks towards the light, and Scott is seized by fear. He can’t help but feel like it’s a sacrifice. Someone has to keep the secret safe. Someone has to take the blame. Scott reaches out for Deaton’s white lab coat, which is growing fuzzier and blurrier as it blends in with the fluorescent light. But he doesn’t make it on time. Deaton fades into the light with Scott’s father.

Scott is frozen to the spot, and he feels the floor tilting. He moves forward to keep his balance and sees a gurney wheel past him, which is immediately swallowed by the darkness behind him. More of the vet clinic’s furniture begins to tilt and fall, whirling past Scott as the floor gets steeper and steeper. Scott struggles to avoid sliding down, and ends up clawing at the floor. He feels himself slipping an inch at a time, and scampers forward on all fours in a vain attempt to escape the inexorability of his situation.

The floor tilts even further and he slips. He falls face first against the cold linoleum and starts sliding downwards. The darkness envelops him like an old friend.

“Scott!” Stiles calls out for him. Scott’s subsumed by the darkness. He can’t see anything, but he feels the familiar crunch of leaves under his bare feet.

“Scott!” Allison joins in.

Scott turns towards the voice and starts walking. Slowly, very slowly.

He sees trees emerging from the darkness as he moves forward, into a clearing. A clearing he knew very well.

He finds five people surrounding the remains of the Nemeton. Allison, Stiles, Isaac, Lydia and his mother.

“Thank God you made it,” Melissa breathes out, relieved. “We have to finish the sacrifice.”

“Sacrifice?” Scott asks, alarmed. They are surrounding the Nemeton’s stump, but they have made a path for him to walk up to it.

“It’s the only way,” Lydia says sadly. “It always needs more.”

“Come on, Scott,” Isaac tells him quietly, and guides him to climb up the stump. The other four take their positions around the two of them, on the ground below.

Stiles draws a slender dagger from his waistband and extends his left arm forward. “Virgin,” he utters, displeased, and slices at his wrist with a fast, fearful motion. Blood starts pouring onto the earth as Stiles loudly complains about the pain.

Allison takes out her Chinese ring dagger and extends her arm forward. “Warrior,” she declares proudly, and slashes her wrist without even flinching.

Melissa takes out a scalpel. “Healer,” she whispers, takes a deep breath, and cuts. She winces, but she doesn’t scream. She is precise and clinical, as she is in the hospital.

Lydia takes out a dagger that looks just like Stiles’s, and extends her arm with some hesitation. “Philosopher,” she mutters to herself. She grips the dagger tightly, clenches her jaw and slices at her outstretched arm.

Scott is too busy staring at his surroundings horrified, to realise Isaac has a dagger of his own. “Guardian,” he says fondly, with a casual smile, as he draws the blade across his arm. Blood begins to drip upon the center of the Nemeton’s stump.

“You?” Scott asks, incredulous.

“I wanted to protect you,” Isaac explains with a shrug. “I don’t know when it happened.”

But Scott knows he’s lying.

“It happened at the rave,” Scott counters, and Isaac looks away. “I didn’t want you to get hurt then, and I don’t want you to get hurt now.”

“It’s not up to you,” Isaac replies, turning to face Scott. “It never was.” There is a pause, and Isaac smiles sadly. “It’s what I do, Scott, I get hurt. I’m good at it.” Isaac leans forward into Scott’s space, with a seductive grin, and the drip drip drip of Isaac’s blood on the Nemeton rises to an almost thundering volume. “Let me bleed for you, Scott.”

“No,” Scott whispers, terrified. “I don’t want anyone to bleed for me.”

“But they already have,” Isaac says, stepping back. “Look around.”

Scott turns to the roots of the Nemeton and sees his friends, his mother, lying on the ground, unmoving. There is no blood. The oak tree has drank it all, just like Isaac’s.

“NO!” Scott roars, and his voice is distorted by the werewolf power within him. But it’s too late. It’s always too late.

The darkness from around the clearing creeps closer and swallows the ground, leaving only the Nemeton’s stump visible. Isaac is pale.

“You shouldn’t have done this,” Scott says helplessly, but Isaac only smiles. “How am I going to live like this?”

“You always knew this would happen, Scott,” Isaac says gently. The dagger falls to the darkness and Isaac raises his open hand, the one not bleeding, to cup Scott’s cheek. “On the night of the full moon, will you kill: all of your friends, most of your friends, or some of your friends?”

“I didn’t kill anyone!” Scott yells, despair clutching at his chest like ice. Isaac looks at him as if Scott was a child who just didn’t understand.

“Then why are your eyes blue?” Isaac asks patiently, and Scott reels back.

Suddenly he is seeing himself, shocked, stepping back from Isaac’s deathly pale form. He sees his face, frozen in horror. His eyes are blue and his hands are soaked in fresh blood. The Scott on the Nemeton looks down at his hands, aware only then of the fresh blood in them. The blood of his friends and family, of his allies. Of the innocent.

“I don’t care what it does to the colour of my eyes,” Scott hears himself whisper.

Isaac falls to his knees, weak from blood loss. Scott kneels down with him. “Stay with me,” Scott pleads him, an intense and inexplicable anguish oppressing his chest. Isaac looks up at him, gray-blue eyes shining brightly under the moonlight.

“I can’t,” Isaac replies with genuine regret. “They’re waiting for me.” His eyes close and he slumps forward, head resting on Scott’s shoulder. Scott clutches him in a violent hug as fury and sorrow run through his body. He’s holding Stiles, long and lanky. He’s holding Lydia, small and light. He’s holding Allison, just like he always did. He’s holding his mother, the way he hoped he’d never have to.

And he’s kneeling in the parking lot of the Glen Capri; it’s wet and Melissa’s dead and everyone’s gone. There’s a fuel can nearby, but it’s empty and Scott feels so cold. He’s soaked to the bone. He looks at the lit flare in his hand, then looks around to see if Stiles will come to talk him out of it, if Lydia will tackle him to safety.

But there’s nobody around. He’s alone. And it’s then that he feels it, deep within. He’s in the past. Before the bite, before meeting Allison or Isaac or Derek. He can save them. He can save them all. All he needs to do is bring the flare into contact with his fuel-soaked body. He’s the reason everyone’s hurt or dead. He keeps dragging everyone down with him. They all bleed for him, die for him, kill for him.

And nothing would have happened if he had killed himself before entering their lives. It’s the perfect answer.

Scott looks at the lit flare. “I’m sorry, Mom,” he tries to say, but his voice cracks up and he has to choke back a sob.

They’ll all be better off without him. So much better off.

He brings the flare up to his chest, over his heart, where the darkness lurks.

And everything is pain.

Scott wakes up with a gasp. He’s drenched in sweat and his heart is hammering painfully. He looks around, confused, and it takes him a while to realise it was only a dream.

He keeps the dream to himself. He doesn’t tell Stiles or Isaac or his mother or Deaton about it, because he doesn’t want to worry them. He wants them safe and happy, so he puts on a smile and tries not to think about how happy he felt when he believed he was finally dying.

That’s just the darkness around his heart.

Right?


	2. Author's Notes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My incredibly long notes about this ficlet.

Huge props to [amorremanet](http://amorremanet.tumblr.com/), whose [amazing](http://amor-remanet.livejournal.com/588591.html/) two-part [Scott meta](http://amor-remanet.livejournal.com/588395.html/) inspired this (on the suicidal ideation/depression angle).

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 _Recurring Theme:_ Being swallowed and/or overwhelmed. This dream imagery often symbolises that the dreamer feels overwhelmed by a situation in Real Life, which is what I wanted to convey the most throughout the fic. Scott’s overwhelmed by everything even after it’s over, and he fears that since he cut it so close this time, next time he won’t be so lucky.

We see Scott also fearing that same overwhelming feeling swallowing others, and it represents his fear of his friends, family and allies being overwhelmed just like him.

We see in the dream, three types of things doing the swallowing: darkness, light and the ground. Darkness represents the supernatural, and all the people that are swallowed by the dark (Ethan, Aiden, Lydia, Stiles, Melissa, Allison and Isaac) are people that Scott fears he might lose to the supernatural. We also see one case of someone swallowed by light instead of darkness (Deaton). Light, to Scott, represents the mundane world. It is the literal opposite of the darkness of the supernatural, but is no less dangerous. Deaton is swallowed by the light and is similarly overwhelmed, and he is lost not to the supernatural, but to the mundane world (represented by Scott’s father).

Danny is the only one swallowed not by darkness or light, but by the ground itself. Dream semiology differs on what this means, but I went with the idea that the ground represents stability, wisdom, knowledge and tradition. Danny, in this case, is being devoured by the knowledge that Scott and co. are keeping away from him.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Speaking of Danny, the symbolism in the blindfold is exceedingly obvious, as it stands for his unawareness of the supernatural. That the cloth is white is also symbolic of his innocence, and the bloodstains and raggedness of the cloth represent how the events in which he’s been tangentially involved have been fraying at this innocence, to the point where he’s trying to take the blindfold off (or so Scott fears). Danny’s place in the dream is to represent the innocent bystander (the way Jackson, Allison and Lydia were before the blindfold was removed from their eyes).

Ethan and Aiden, on the other hand, represent Scott’s allies (not friends, at least not yet), and the monsters that swallow them whole represent the enemies of the future. Scott fears that no matter how many allies he gathers, whatever awaits them in the future will overwhelm them all the same.

The vet clinic is a sequence meant to highlight some of Scott’s anxieties regarding his father and establishing that he understands the sacrifices that the adults in his life (Melissa, Deaton and now the Sheriff) have to make that he just can’t do in their stead. He’s just a teenager, and no matter how resourceful and heroic he is, there are some things that only adults can take care of. Scott knows this, and has internalised the helplessness at being unable to prevent an authority figure in his life from suffering the (mundane) consequences of protecting him (the consequences, in this case, being also represented by Scott’s father). Hence why Deaton is swallowed by the light.

The ritual with Stiles, Lydia, Allison, Melissa and Isaac is more of a “traditional” nightmare sequence, where Scott dreams about something directly related to what has happened to him recently, and uses that imagery as symbolism for deeper worries and fears. In this case, the overarching theme of the sequence is the idea that his friends are going to get hurt, willingly, in his stead (as it almost happened in the mid-season finale). The symbolism here is also fairly obvious and not too difficult to figure out, but a bit that might prove confusing is the Isaac focus (which isn’t because I ship Scisaac).

What I was trying to explore here is that while Scott recognises that Melissa is an adult and therefore has a right to make a sacrifice for him (like Deaton), and that Stiles, Allison and Lydia have all proven their agency as well, Scott still sees Isaac as someone who needs to be protected and held back from harming himself, instead of someone who can be trusted with the responsibility of self-sacrifice. This we observe in both S2 (as Scott feels responsible for Isaac and doesn’t want him to get hurt) and in S3 (as he constantly tries to keep Isaac from trouble).

In that regard, I feel Scott underestimates Isaac’s agency a bit and is struggling to let Isaac be his own person and make his own decisions, even if those decisions end up with Isaac getting hurt.

The motel part is a direct reference to Motel California, and it’s my way of writing about Scott coping with that episode’s aftermath. The symbolism here taps directly into that imagery.

Scott is in a very bad state, emotionally, when he reaches this part of the nightmare (and it has become officially a nightmare by this point). Here Scott taps into the feelings that he’s been repressing or ignoring from Motel California to Lunar Ellipse. He wants to die. He wants to stop bringing pain and misery and death to the people he loves, he wants them to be safe and happy and he blames himself for all the instances he unwillingly endangered them. So he taps into that guilt and creates a scenario where he can fulfil his desire to die (that he doesn’t want to admit to himself or anyone) without feeling selfish. His guilt enables him to commit suicide from a morally justified perspective.

The only person that he knows will be hurt no matter what is Melissa. Scott knows that he cannot construct a scenario where Melissa is not affected by his death, and so he asks for her forgiveness with his last breath.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 _Motifs:_ Blood is a motif that appears a few times (Danny’s blindfold, the ritual) and it symbolises death and violence. Danny’s innocence has been tainted by it (in Scott’s eyes) and Lydia, Stiles, Allison, Melissa and Isaac all willingly bleed for Scott (meaning, they wade into dangerous, violent situations for him).

Another motif is sacrifice, which has been an overall theme in S3 and Scott’s subconscious has picked up on that. Darkness is a recurring motif that stands for the forces of the supernatural, and loss is a vaguer, more abstract motif that represents exactly what Scott fears the most. Loss stalks him throughout the dream as his subconscious attempts to face these fears and work through them.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 _Specific Occurrences:_ Some of what happens to Scott in the dream have specific symbolic meaning as well. Falling is commonly interpreted as a fear of losing control. Scott’s fall at the vet clinic is an expression of his fear that everything is slipping through his fingers. Being too slow is another occurrence that is interpreted as a fear of helplessness, of not being able to react in time, which is something Scott has verbalised in the show more than once.

The outside perspective in the Scott-Isaac exchange is a type of disassociation common in dreams that has unclear symbolism, but is in general thought to represent some form of detachment from the current situation, which I used both to showcase the blue eyes and to allude to Scott’s outward detachment from his own emotions (particularly after Motel California). The blue eyes themselves (and the blood on Scott’s hands) are a way to foreshadow the scene immediately afterwards, and allude to the guilt that Scott feels over the deaths that happened.

The general dissonances in the dream are deliberate, like Scott specifically having shoes at one point, and being barefoot later on. These dissonances represent Scott’s fear of the unknown, of what the future might bring. Scott knows that the ritual turned the Nemeton into a beacon and he’s struggling to internalise and come to terms with both the darkness around his heart and what the future might bring.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I don’t know if any of this came through in the story itself, but I did my research and tried my best to show it.

I just really have a lot of Scott feels and I want the show to address Scott’s emotional state. But since it probably won’t, I decided to do it myself.

**Author's Note:**

> So I have a lot to say about this ficlet. I'm posting my long Author's Notes as chapter two.


End file.
